TA S K FO RCE O N U. S. P OLICY TOWAR D R U SSIA , U KR A IN E, A N D EUR A SIA
THE NEW NATO-RUSSIA MILITARY BALANCE: IMPLICATIONS FOR EUROPEAN SECURITY
RICHARD SOKOLSKY
Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War, the military balance between NATO and Russia, after years
of inattention, has again become the focus of intense concern and even alarm in some Western quarters.
From NATO’s vantage point, Russia poses a serious military threat to its eastern flank—and to Euro-Atlantic security
more broadly—for three reasons. First, a military reform and modernization program launched in 2008, combined
with significant increases in defense spending over the past several years, has improved the capabilities of Russia’s
armed forces. Second, in the past decade, Russia has demonstrated an unprecedented willingness to use force as
an instrument of its foreign policy, as well as an improved capacity to project military power beyond its immediate
post-Soviet periphery. Third, the Kremlin has been conducting a far more aggressive, anti-Western foreign policy,
significantly ratcheting up provocative military maneuvers near NATO members’ borders with Russia, intimating
nuclear threats, and deploying nuclear-capable missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.1 As a result, there
is a growing perception in the West that Russia has reemerged as a revanchist, neo-imperialist, expansionist,
and hostile power bent on dismantling the post–Cold War European security system and dividing the continent
into spheres of influence.
The Kremlin has a dramatically different perspective.
It maintains that it is threatened by the West and by
instability not only around Russia’s periphery but also at
home. With NATO’s expansion, the alliance’s border with
Russia has shifted much closer to the Russian heartland.
These fears, however unjustified they seem from the West’s
point of view, have prompted the Kremlin to launch a
national mobilization effort to thwart what it perceives as a
direct Western threat to Russian security.2 As seen from the
Kremlin, over the past twenty years, the United States and
NATO have undertaken numerous initiatives that underscore
the threat from the West: NATO expansion into Eastern
Europe and the Baltics; NATO partnership programs with
states throughout the former Soviet Union; improvements
in conventional, missile defense, and nuclear capabilities;
support for antigovernment uprisings and regime change
around Russia’s periphery; and assistance to opposition
movements and parties inside Russia. Specifically, Russian
officials have argued that the U.S.-led campaign in the
Balkans in the 1990s, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003,
NATO’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, and U.S.
support for the opposition in Syria and for the Arab Spring
have threatened Russia’s security environment.3
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Sokolsky is a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program. His work focuses on U.S. policy toward Russia
in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
These conflicting perceptions have contributed to a lack
of trust, a deteriorating security environment, and the
prospect of a much more unstable and dangerous adversarial
relationship between the West and Russia for many years to
come. It remains to be seen whether U.S. President Donald
Trump’s desire to improve relations with Russia will prove
successful in lowering tensions and putting the U.SRussian relationship on a more positive trajectory. There are
ample grounds, however, for skepticism. The U.S.-Russian
confrontation is deeply rooted in fundamental differences
over interests and values, clashing conceptions of the rules
of international order, and each country’s views of its
own exceptionalism.
The U.S.-Russian relationship is likely to remain adversarial
and will play out largely in the geopolitical gray zone that
now divides the Euro-Atlantic security order and Russia.4
But how it plays out—whether it leads to some semblance
of stability or conflict—cannot be predicted. Russia is a major
power facing a near-certain, long-term decline. However, this
downward trajectory does not mean that Russia’s diminishing
circumstances will make the Kremlin less risk-averse and
restrained.5 Western sanctions, lower oil prices, and economic
stagnation over the past two years have not diminished
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s appetite for taking risks
(for example, in Syria).
It is important, therefore, to take proper measure of Russian
capabilities. Of course, they are not the only indicator of
Russia’s future actions—motives, intentions, context, and
opportunities will also figure in the equation. But the Kremlin
has repeatedly demonstrated a will to act contrary to most
Western assessments of those capabilities and at great cost
to Russian interests as they are understood in the West.
A sober understanding of those capabilities is essential to
understanding some drivers of Russian actions and crafting
an appropriate Western response.
In examining the conflicting estimates of the NATO-Russia
military balance on the alliance’s eastern front—and the
current state of that balance—several policy implications
for the United States become clear. To make sustainable
improvements in alliance security, NATO’s increased
2
reassurance and military measures—while necessary to
enhance deterrence of Russian military adventurism—
should be supplemented with robust measures to mitigate
the risks of an unintended conflict with Russia. NATO and
Russia, through increased dialogue, restraint, and possibly
even cooperation, need to find ways to climb down the
escalatory ladder.6
If Russia remains intransigent and continues its provocative
behavior, the United States and its allies will have to expand
and accelerate their planned defense improvements on
NATO’s eastern front, as well take additional diplomatic
and economic measures to respond to Russian behavior.
THE VIEW FROM NATO
During the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign, Mitt Romney,
the Republican nominee, called Russia the United States’
number one geopolitical foe—a claim that was roundly
criticized by most experts.7 But only two years later, Russia’s
annexation of Crimea and its aggression in eastern Ukraine
precipitated a fundamental change in Western perceptions
of the Russian military threat to NATO. In the summer of
2015, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
U.S. General Martin Dempsey, and his successor, General
Joseph Dunford, both described Russia as the greatest
threat to U.S. national security.8 U.S. Secretary of Defense
James Mattis, in his senate confirmation hearings, echoed
these views, as did the director of the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), Mike Pompeo. Senior U.S. military officials
in Europe and at NATO, as well as the governments of
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, have also expressed
alarm over Russia’s actions.9 Each government has pressed
Washington and Brussels to significantly increase the alliance’s
permanent presence and conventional capabilities in their
territory to bolster deterrence and defense against a possible
Russian invasion. What happened to bring about such a
dramatic change in the U.S. and the West’s perception of
the Russian threat?
From the West’s perspective, Russia’s aggressive behavior
on its western border over the past two years has validated
this darker view of the Russian threat. Russian intelligence
operatives abducted an Estonian intelligence officer from
Estonian territory in 2014.10 Russian aircraft have conducted
frequent intrusions into the air space of NATO countries
and harassed U.S. and NATO ships and aircraft operating in
the Baltic and Black Sea regions.11 Russian forces have staged
unannounced (“snap”) exercises simulating the use of nuclear
weapons in an invasion of the Baltic region.12 The Russian
military has deployed additional missile and air defense assets
and, most recently, nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to
Kaliningrad.13 There has been a significant increase in Russian
cyber operations against Estonia and, within the past few
months, the United States.14 Russian officials, including
Putin, have threatened nuclear strikes against NATO
countries that have missile defense installations within their
territory.15 Russia’s recent deployment of a nuclear-armed
cruise missile that threatens NATO forces and facilities—in
violation of the U.S.-Russian Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty—underscores Moscow’s intent to
undermine alliance cohesion.16
Moscow has also threatened a military response if Sweden
or Finland decides to join NATO; according to NATO’s
secretary-general, Russian exercises have included simulated
nuclear strikes against Sweden.17 Reported changes in the
Russian military doctrine suggest that the Kremlin plans on
the first use of nuclear weapons in the early stages of a conflict
with NATO (known as “escalate to de-escalate”) to prevent
escalation to a larger-scale conventional war that Moscow
believes NATO would ultimately win. Moreover, NATO
has every reason to be concerned about Russia’s ongoing
quantitative and qualitative improvements in military forces
opposite the alliance’s eastern flank, its violations of the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and its effective
withdrawal from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
Treaty (both treaties are long considered bedrocks of
European stability and security).
In response to these troubling developments, the United
States and NATO have launched several initiatives to improve
their deterrence and defense posture in the east and to
reassure the Baltic states and Poland of the alliance’s Article
5 commitment. Under NATO’s Readiness Action Plan,
approved at the Wales Summit in September 2014, and the
United States’ European Reassurance Initiative (ERI), the
United States and its European allies are planning to allocate
more than $4 billion to (1) add a U.S. Brigade Combat
Team to the two it already has stationed in Europe,18 along
with an airborne brigade, and (2) pre-position permanent
equipment for another combat brigade. At the Warsaw
Summit in July 2016, NATO leaders officially approved
the continuous rotational deployment of four multinational
battalions (about 4,000 troops) to the Baltic states and Poland
to maintain a persistent forward presence—and some of these
units have already arrived in Poland to take up their positions.
In addition, NATO agreed on additional measures to improve
the readiness, training, command and control, and logistics
support of these forces.19
From NATO’s perspective, this is a prudent approach that
serves to bolster deterrence and reassure the Baltic states
without presenting a significant military menace right up
against Russia’s borders.20 Nonetheless, assuming that the
United States fully implements the ERI and NATO fulfills
the commitments made at its two most recent summits, the
alliance will maintain only a thin “tripwire” force deployed
on its eastern flank to deter and provide an initial forward
defense against a Russian conventional attack. Note, however,
that NATO maintained a similar force in West Berlin under
similar circumstances, and it was successful for more than
forty years in deterring a Soviet attempt to change the status
quo by force or intimidation.
THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
As was the case during the Cold War, published Russian
assessments of the military balance with NATO—such as
Russia’s National Security Strategy for 2016—do not reflect
the alliance’s view that NATO is outmatched by superior
Russian forces. To the contrary, the assessments reveal a deep
sense of inferiority vis-à-vis NATO in high-precision and
long-range conventional strike capabilities, nuclear weapons,
missile defenses, and other kinetic and nonkinetic forms of
warfare.21 In these estimates, the Russian military would face
a far superior enemy—better equipped with “smart weapons”
and electronic warfare capabilities, better trained, better
led, and better sustained. This lack of confidence may seem
CAR NEGI E E NDOWM E NT FOR I NT E R NAT I ONAL PEACE | 3
surprising, given Russian progress over the past several years
on defense reform and military modernization; increases
in defense spending; and successful operations in Georgia,
Ukraine, and Syria. Nonetheless, Russians maintain that the
current NATO buildup in the Baltic states—less than a twohour drive from Russia’s second-largest city—is a strategic
threat to the homeland. Some of this rhetoric is no doubt
intended to mobilize the Russian public’s support for the
regime at a time of economic hardship. But it also reflects
real anxiety over NATO’s military prowess and U.S. and
Western intentions toward Russia.
Nuclear weapons remain at the heart of Russia’s national
security strategy and military doctrine, given its perceived
conventional inferiority; however, the West’s plans for
improving its conventional offensive and missile defense
capabilities are apparently eroding the confidence of Russian
military planners in their nuclear deterrent. Some Russian
military officials see the following as the worst-case scenario:
a combination of NATO’s conventional and nuclear offensive
and missile defense capabilities prove devastating to Russia’s
strategic forces and deny Moscow the ability to deliver a
retaliatory strike.22 U.S. and NATO military planners may
see this as a remote prospect, but Russia’s conservative military
establishment has maintained that the threat is real.
The West’s preoccupation with Russia’s hybrid warfare
capabilities is mirrored by Russia’s own fears;23 the Kremlin
charges that the West is conducting hybrid warfare through
a combination of military and other means,24 particularly
democracy promotion activities in and around Russia.25
From Moscow’s perspective, these activities encircle Russia
with Western agents of influence, create opportunities for
Western intervention, and empower groups inside Russia
opposed to the Russian government.26 Similarly, according
to Russian defense experts, the West’s cyberwarfare
capabilities have heightened Russia’s sense of insecurity.27
They believe cyberwarfare could, among other effects,
destroy Russia’s civilian infrastructure and computer networks
and disseminate false information to sow widespread public
panic and paralyze its armed forces. The neuralgia to this
potential threat was underscored when Putin declared Google
“a special project” of the CIA and urged Russians to avoid
4
using it. Putin’s comments about U.S. control of the Internet
suggest pervasive insecurity about the country’s vulnerability
to cyber and information attacks.28
THE MILITARY BALANCE:
A POLITICAL-MILITARY ASSESSMENT
NATO and Russian officials responsible for the security
of their countries must, of necessity, base policies, plans,
programs, postures, and resource commitments on estimates
of the other side’s military capabilities. And because the
margin for error on national security is small with countries
possessing thousands of nuclear weapons, these judgments
are almost always driven by worst-case assumptions of
the adversary’s intentions, which are often subject to
misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and misperceptions.29
Political Considerations
Intentions, not just capabilities, matter even if they are
often difficult to divine and are subject to rapid and
sometimes unpredictable change. It is reasonable to assume
that the Kremlin would prefer to have the Baltic states in its
sphere of influence instead of having NATO troops deployed
in their territory within 100 miles of St. Petersburg. It is also
safe to assume that Putin aspires to deal a crippling blow to
NATO’s cohesion. However, Russia’s record over the past
decade—since it began to rebuild its military capabilities—
suggests that the Kremlin is sensitive to the likely costs of
its actions and has a healthy dose of respect for NATO’s
security guarantee.
Despite Russian leaders’ truculent behavior, they have
shown great capacity to judge when the costs and risks
of their belligerence are too high. They have walked up to
NATO’s red lines, but they have not crossed them. The wars
in Georgia and Ukraine were fought against much weaker
adversaries without a NATO security guarantee. In Syria, the
Russian military stepped into a vacuum, reassured that the
United States and its allies had no intention of intervening on
the ground or in the air to tip the scale in favor of rebel forces
fighting President Bashar al-Assad. In short, conclusions
about Putin’s propensity to wage war against NATO and his
intentions toward the Baltic states cannot be made solely on
the basis of his wars against Georgia and Ukraine or Russian
military deployment to Syria.
Russian actions in Ukraine are indicative of how seriously
the Kremlin views NATO and its security guarantees to its
members. Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in
eastern Ukraine were calculated steps to prevent Ukraine from
advancing toward NATO membership and escaping Russia’s
sphere of influence—a development that would have marked
a major strategic setback for Russia and an embarrassment
for Putin, considering the Kremlin’s view of Ukraine as an
essential buffer against a hostile and expansionist NATO.
Moreover, it would be hard for Moscow to replicate the
favorable circumstances in the Baltic region that Russia
enjoyed in Crimea. Large Russian forces were already on the
peninsula prior to the crisis and were operating from a wellestablished infrastructure. Further, as many observers have
pointed out, the Crimea operation was carried out mainly
by Russia’s elite special forces units and therefore was not a
true reflection of the overall state of Russian ground forces.30
Simply put, the Baltic states are already in NATO. An
outright military assault on them would risk an all-out war
with NATO.
It is also essential to understand that the Kremlin’s decision
to go to war against NATO would be political—driven by
more than the sheer number of tanks, troops, and aircraft.
The Russian elite’s paramount concern is its survival and
the system it has built and invested in; Russia has a deepseated fear of political instability and perceived U.S. designs
for regime change. As one of Putin’s closest advisers put it,
“The Americans are trying to . . . cause regime change in
Russia and ultimately dismember our country via events
in Ukraine.”31 It would be extremely risky for the Kremlin
to bet that Russian forces could attack the most powerful
military alliance in the world and prevail in a conflict, because
the consequences of losing—and even winning—that gamble
would be catastrophic for the Russian elite and the country
as a whole.
In other words, Putin’s decision to launch a conventional
war against NATO would involve weighing the importance
of the political objectives served by a military victory against
calculations of the costs and risks of military action. There is,
of course, room for Putin to miscalculate or misjudge
NATO’s political will to honor its Article 5 commitment.
But he is likely to conclude that Russia would eventually face
the full weight of NATO’s military machine in response to
a Russian attack—a calculation based on his judgment that
NATO’s leaders and especially the U.S. president would not
want to suffer the extremely negative consequences if the
alliance failed to deliver on its security guarantee—the end
of the alliance and a dramatic blow to the political fortunes
of NATO leaders.
Conventional Military Capabilities
Russia enjoys favorable geography and a numerical advantage
over NATO in manpower and in every major category of
combat weapons and equipment that would be used in an
initial military attack against the Baltic states. This is the
case even when considering the standing forces of the Baltic
states, the forces that other NATO members would deploy
in peacetime or on a rotational basis on Baltic (and Polish)
territory, and the early arriving forces that NATO has assigned
to reinforce its eastern flank in response to a strategic warning
of an attack.
Manpower
Russia has twenty-two maneuver battalions deployed in
the Western Military District and three in Kaliningrad32—
although some of the best units in this region are assigned
to the defense of Russian forces in and around Ukraine and
based there in peacetime. Today, the Baltic states’ forces
and other NATO forces available on a D-Day for an initial
forward defense of Baltic territory total roughly seventeen
battalions;33 after the United States and its NATO allies
implement their force improvement plans for the eastern flank
over the next two years, the alliance will have an additional
four multinational battalions on rotational deployment in
the Baltic states and Poland.34 In addition, depending on the
length of warning time of an attack, the United States could
deploy another two armored brigade combat teams. This is
not a terribly lopsided numerical advantage in Russia’s favor,
but it does not take into account the substantial qualitative
differences in the type of units on each side.
CAR NEGI E E NDOWM E NT FOR I NT E R NAT I ONAL PEACE | 5
Heavy Armor
The three Baltic countries have eleven infantry or light
infantry battalions; in a limited warning scenario, the United
States has one Stryker combat brigade forward deployed on
the eastern flank. In contrast, Russia has a heavier posture—
of the twenty-two battalions in the Western Military District,
thirteen are tank, motorized, or mechanized infantry units
and their table of organization and equipment features far
more combat firepower.
Artillery and Surface-to-Surface Missiles
Russian forces can employ far more direct and indirect fire
systems, which would severely stress the ability of NATO
forces to halt Russia’s initial assault and hold territory. Russia
has ten artillery battalions in the Western Military District,35
and most of these systems have greater range and rates of
fire than their NATO counterparts. In addition, five surfaceto-surface missile (SSM) battalions back these artillery
formations.36 In comparison, NATO forces suffer from a
serious deficit in tubed artillery, rocket launchers, and SSMs.
In short, NATO’s lighter forces are outgunned by Russia.
Combat Aircraft and Assault Helicopters
Russia has twenty-seven combat air squadrons deployed
in the Western Military District and six battalions of
assault helicopters37—almost all of which are among the
most advanced aircraft in Russia’s order of battle. NATO
combat air forces available at the beginning of hostilities
or within seven days of the start of the war total almost
nineteen squadrons (if, and it is a big if, Sweden abandons
its neutrality and allows some of these units to operate out
of Swedish bases).38 Like Russia, these units generally feature
the alliance’s most modern and capable aircraft. This is not a
terribly lopsided numerical advantage on paper for Russian
forces, but NATO air forces would be operating in a highly
contested environment over the battlefield.
In sum, Russia would attack with a much larger and heavier
force, supported by advanced armor, weapons, and sensors
and by a sophisticated air defense system and long-range
direct fire systems. Until U.S. and NATO force improvement
plans are implemented over the next few years, the alliance
would have to repel the initial assault with a light covering
6
force. Its combat aircraft, standoff missile capabilities, and
ability to reinforce the Baltic states by air, sea, and land would
be increasingly challenged by Russian anti-access/area denial
(A2/AD) capabilities in and around Kaliningrad.39
This state of affairs has led a majority of Western defense
experts to accept the judgment of a recent RAND study
that NATO is “outnumbered, outranged, and outgunned”
by the Russians on the alliance’s eastern periphery. According
to its authors, “If Russia were to conduct a short-warning
attack against the Baltic states, Moscow’s forces could roll
to the outskirts of the Estonian capital of Tallinn and the
Latvian capital of Riga in 36 to 60 hours.”40 The Suwalki
Gap—a roughly 65-mile-long strip of territory on Poland’s
eastern border, which lies between Kaliningrad and Belarus
and serves as the only land link between Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania and the rest of NATO—is a particular worry for
NATO planners.41 (See figure 1)
It should be noted, however, that the amount of strategic
warning NATO would have of a Russian invasion or
aggression on a smaller scale is a matter of dispute. Other
assumptions the RAND study made are also debatable—such
as the size of the Russian invasion force, the precise nature of
Russia’s campaign and how it would organize the assault, and
whether Belarus would try to maintain neutrality.42
Throughout the Cold War, there was general agreement that
NATO’s qualitative advantages in conventional capabilities
helped to offset the Warsaw Pact’s greater numerical strength.
Today, the NATO-Russia military balance along their
common border presents a more complex picture when
qualitative factors are considered, which is one reason Western
assessments of the Russian military threat to the eastern flank
vary and can change dramatically. For example, it was not too
long ago that many experts gave NATO a decisive edge in the
event of a military confrontation.43 According to the current
consensus, however, a Russian invasion force could quickly
overwhelm NATO defenses, largely because it has narrowed
the qualitative gap with NATO in conventional capabilities.
Proponents of this view highlight the following developments:
• Since 2008, when Russia launched an ambitious and wellresourced military reform and modernization program,
Figure 1.
U.S.
DISPUTED TERRITORY*
SEPARATIST-CONTROLLED TERRITORY OF UKRAINE
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Russia’s air defense capabilities have improved significantly.
Particularly worrisome is the upgrading of Russia’s A2/AD
capabilities in Kaliningrad with the deployment of new
S-400 anti-aircraft systems; land-based coastal defense missile
launchers; and nuclear-capable, ship-based cruise missiles,
posing a severe challenge for NATO ships and aircraft over
their own territory and in the Baltic Sea.44
• As a result of improved command structures, personnel,
hardware, and exercises, Russian forces are more effectively
organized, better trained and equipped, and in a higher
state of combat readiness than they were during the
war with Georgia. Of particular importance, Russia has
ramped up the number of regular and snap exercises
0
500 Miles
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600 Kilometers
*NOT RECOGNIZED BY THE UNITED STATES
LUCIDITY INFORMATION DESIGN, LLC
involving all of its armed forces, all of its military districts,
and often joint interservice and interagency operations.
These exercises have allowed the Russian military to advance
in redressing shortcomings in new, unified command and
control arrangements and mobilization and reinforcement
capabilities across all of Russia’s military districts.45
• Russia’s Western Military District has several assigned
heavy ground force units that are highly mobile and at
high readiness levels under the command of a corps-level
headquarters.46 Russia has reportedly improved its capabilities
for rapid decisionmaking and reinforcement and for largescale offensive operations.47
CAR NEGI E E NDOWM E NT FOR I NT E R NAT I O NAL PEACE | 7
• Russia enjoys the advantage of interior lines of
communication and an extensive network of Russian-gauge
railways throughout the Baltic region. All three Baltic states
are sandwiched between Kaliningrad and mainland Russia—
and some ports and airfields critical to NATO’s defenses in
the Baltic region are within 30 miles of the Russian border.48
However, in evaluating these developments, it is important
to understand that Russian officials often put a positive
public spin on its armed forces for domestic political and
propaganda reasons and to burnish Russia’s claims to greatpower status.49 In June 2016, a purge of senior officials was
carried out in the Baltic Fleet command for misrepresenting
readiness levels during snap inspections.50 Other reports have
also suggested systemic problems with military reporting on
inspections that overstate readiness and other performance
indicators. In addition, there are indications that reports on
armaments production have exaggerated the extent to which
new and improved, as opposed to upgraded and refurbished,
equipment is entering the inventory.51
These attempts to cover up weaknesses in the Russian military,
coupled with other operational and structural factors that
adversely affect the combat effectiveness of Russian forces,
call into question some of the more alarmist assessments of
Russian conventional capabilities.52 Less pessimistic analysts
of the new military balance between NATO and Russia argue
the following:
• From 1991 to 2008, the Russian armed forces suffered a
serious deterioration in combat readiness, training, and
equipment. In the late 1980s, it is estimated that Russia
devoted 15 percent of its GDP to defense and the Russian
defense industry employed more than 6 million people.
By 1997, Russian defense spending consumed slightly more
than 4 percent of a much smaller GDP and employment
in the defense industry had shrunk by roughly 50 percent.53
The reform and modernization program launched in
2008 started, therefore, from an extremely low base. The
improvements that the Russian armed forces have made over
the past eight years need to be evaluated within this context.
• The military operations Russia has engaged in over the
past decade were not a serious test of combat effectiveness,
8
given the nature of the opposing force, geography, and the
largely benign environment in which Russia’s forces were
operating; the combat conditions they would confront
against NATO forces on the eastern front would greatly
differ. In Syria, Russia’s units have demonstrated better
organization, coordination, and command and control
than the units that fought in the war with Georgia, but
there continue to be shortfalls in the numbers of precision
munitions and persistent unmanned aerial vehicles.54 Further,
ongoing problems with the training and morale of Russian
ground forces, which would degrade combat effectiveness,
raise serious questions about their capacity to fight forces
far superior to the opposition encountered in Georgia,
Ukraine, and Syria.55
• More recently, in 2014, the Russian general staff was
reportedly forced to stitch together a tank battalion from
units stationed near Mongolia to reinforce separatist forces
in eastern Ukraine due to a shortage of well-trained personnel
near the theater of operations.56
• With the exception of Russian long-range artillery and other
direct fire weapons systems, the Russian armed forces are
well behind U.S. and NATO forces in high-tech weaponry
that most Russian military experts believe is at the heart
of modern warfare and would determine the outcome of a
battle. 57 These include state-of-the-art C4ISR (command,
control, communications, computers, intelligence,
surveillance, reconnaissance) and electronic warfare
capabilities, conventional precision strike weapons, and
unmanned aerial vehicles—shortfalls that the Russian chief
of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, has acknowledged.58
Most equipment operated by Russian ground and air forces
are updated versions of late-generation Soviet models.
• Russia’s military reform program has been inconsistent
and incomplete and has failed to correct several serious
shortcomings. These include limited sustainability and
strategic mobility due to inadequate logistics, reararea support, and transportation assets; chronically
undermanned and poorly trained units that continue to
rely on a disproportionate number of short-term conscripts
and a limited cadre of contract service personnel and
noncommissioned officers; and a defense industry that
continues to churn out inferior equipment as a result of
corruption, poor management, backward technology, the loss
of access to niche defense industries in Ukraine, and western
sanctions that have undermined Russia’s ability to import
dual-use technologies and adapt them for military systems.59
• Although the Kremlin has committed substantially more
ground forces to the Western Military District, most of
these units are deployed closer to the southern portion
of the district along Russia’s border with Ukraine. As one
study on the Russian military has argued, the distribution
of Russia’s total force structure across all four of its military
districts suggests the following priorities: preparing for a
second war in and around Ukraine, maintaining a highly
ready and mobile crisis intervention force for Central Asia,
developing a more robust deterrent against regime change
in Belarus, and planning for large-scale territorial defense
against NATO or China.60 In fact, movement toward the
permanent deployment of the newest and most capable
units near the Russia-Ukraine border suggests that Russia
is not preparing for an attack against NATO.61
• It seems unlikely that Russia will, in the foreseeable future,
achieve the goal of a fully professional military; for the next
several years, Russia will continue to rely largely on conscripts
rather than contract personnel and on legacy Soviet weapons
systems. In particular, it looks improbable that the Kremlin
will meet the goal of its State Armaments Program of
replacing 70 percent of its armored vehicles with more
modern equipment by 2020. A stagnant economy over the
next several years and flat or declining defense expenditures,
which have just been announced, are likely to delay this
date.62 Thus, despite recent improvements in Russian military
capabilities, its armed forces are not as well trained as some
of their NATO counterparts and lag behind many in both
the quantity and quality of their military equipment.63
Having said this, two important caveats must be noted.
First, some of Russia’s continuing military shortcomings—
for example, in its sea and strategic airlift capabilities—are
of much greater relevance to Russia’s ability to project and
sustain a large-scale military force well beyond its immediate
post-Soviet neighborhood. In a Baltic–Eastern European
scenario, Russian forces would be operating at the end of
relatively short interior lines of communication with ready
forces that are among the best units in the Russian military—
the most highly trained, equipped with the most modern
equipment, and comprised primarily of contract and direct
support personnel.64
Second, at least in the near term, NATO suffers shortfalls
in its ability to generate and rapidly reinforce countries on the
eastern flank. Force movements across alliance territory would
be hampered by infrastructure, legal, and logistical problems
and an underdeveloped command and control structure on
the flank to direct combined arms operations of multinational
military forces. Further, many of the military units of
smaller NATO countries that have been assigned to the new
multinational battalions are small and lack proper training
and equipment to contest larger and better trained, organized,
and equipped Russian forces. As previously discussed, laterarriving forces from elsewhere in NATO and especially from
the United States would also face great difficulty in getting
through the Baltic Sea due to Russia’s improved sea denial
capabilities over, on, and beneath the water.65
Note, however, that a political decision by Putin to start a
deliberate, premeditated war against one of the Baltic states
or Poland would likely lean heavily on the Russian general
staff’s judgments—rather than the West’s estimates—about
the capacity of the Russian armed forces for achieving a
rapid and decisive conventional victory over NATO forces
and deterring NATO’s use of nuclear weapons. Such
judgments would involve more than a technical or operational
assessment of the balance of forces and would take into
account a broader range of factors.
In the judgment of most Western experts, Moscow might
be reasonably confident that it could achieve its political
and military objectives in a coup de main strategy. Under
this operational concept, Russian forces would strike
quickly to seize a strip of territory on NATO’s eastern
flank after achieving a significant element of strategic
surprise and then issue threats to use nuclear weapons
to deter a NATO counterresponse. If Russia successfully
executed such an operation, it would present NATO with
an excruciating dilemma: accept the Russian fait accompli,
CAR NEGI E E NDOWM E NT FOR I NT E R NAT I ON AL PEACE | 9
which would destroy the alliance, or mobilize for a massive
counteroffensive, which would cause great destruction on
Baltic territory and raise the risk of a nuclear war with Russia.
But it is equally plausible—perhaps even likely—that the
judgments about combat outcomes by conservative Russian
military planners reflect the following worst-case assumptions:
• A full-scale NATO counteroffensive to dislodge Russian
forces from occupied Baltic territory would present the
Russian military with a serious risk of conventional
defeat. A fully mobilized NATO would enjoy both
numerical and qualitative superiority over Russian forces.
While it is true that an alliance reinforcement of the Baltic
states would face a stiff challenge from improved Russian
A2/AD capabilities, the Russians themselves continue to
suffer from logistical and manpower constraints in moving
forces from other military districts across Russia, as well
as from problems with the mobilization system for reserve
forces. In fact, the increased emphasis on testing this system
in Russia’s regular and snap exercises suggests that Russian
military planners take seriously the notion that any war
with NATO originating in the Baltic states will be large-scale
and protracted.66 At the same time, however, some experts
on the Russian military question its ability to conduct mass
mobilization and claim that “the nascent Russian reservists
system can squeeze out a couple of battalions, perhaps even
a brigade, but this represents little in the way of follow on
forces needed in any future protracted conflict. . . . Russia’s
Armed Forces remain a pale shadow of the Red Army.”67
• The escalation of a local war over a small parcel of Baltic
territory to a regional, or even theater-wide, conflict
would likely result in a Russian defeat unless Moscow
was successful in threatening or using nuclear strikes
to cow NATO into submission. The Russian de-escalation
doctrine, which relies on limited nuclear strikes or threats
to launch them against NATO targets, is fraught with great
risk for Moscow. It not only assumes that the United States
and NATO would put the future of the alliance at risk by
backing down in the face of Russian nuclear threats, but also
presupposes that the Kremlin would be prepared to absorb
the enormous economic and diplomatic costs of threatening
10
or using nuclear weapons—including the costs of occupying
and governing those territories it had seized in the Baltic
states or Poland and the prospect of even more crippling
Western economic sanctions. In addition, NATO continues
to maintain a strong tactical nuclear weapons posture and
standoff conventional capabilities.
• A conventional defeat of NATO forces would not likely
mean the end of conflict. Rather, the population of the
Baltic states would conduct an insurgency to increase the
costs of Russian aggression and erode Russian resolve to
maintain an occupation force. The Baltic states may not
currently possess first-class guerilla warfare capabilities,
but Estonia and Latvia—the Baltic states at greatest risk
of Russian aggression—have formed special units to conduct
insurgency operations and have increased training to improve
these skills, especially for urban warfare.68 Occupying and
defending territory against an insurgency would be difficult
and protracted. The Russian army is not well trained for
long-term, counterinsurgency operations, and its specialized
elite forces under the Ministry of the Interior that have this
mission have never been used outside Russia. Moreover, all
three Baltic states are dotted by extensive forests—which
would provide excellent cover for insurgents to hold off
Russian forces until NATO reinforcements can arrive—and
other geographical features such as rivers, lakes, and marshes
that could slow down Russian advances, especially if NATO
were successful in interdicting these targets at the outset of
a conflict.69
An exclusive focus on the balance of conventional military
forces between NATO and Russia, however, ignores an
important reality of the Russian approach to warfare. It
is clear from Russia’s military doctrine, from the views of
the general staff on the nature of modern conflict, and
from Russian military operations in Georgia and Ukraine
that any military operation undertaken on NATO’s
eastern flank would feature some combination of both
conventional and unconventional warfare. Therefore, any
overall assessment of the NATO-Russia military balance
along their common border needs to consider this reality.
NATO and the Baltic states may face their most plausible
challenge in this area, notwithstanding all the attention
showered on bolstering NATO’s defenses against an
outright Russian conventional assault.
Hybrid Warfare Capabilities
Since a military assault on the Baltic states could have
catastrophic consequences for Russia, the Kremlin could
alternatively use nonkinetic or “soft power” tools to
undermine the Baltic states’ confidence in NATO’s Article
5 guarantee, to underscore for NATO publics the dangers
associated with the alliance’s steps to deter and defend against
Russia, and to sap NATO’s cohesion and resolve. Use of these
tools would offer Moscow several advantages. First, they can
often be wielded without leaving any obvious fingerprints,
giving Moscow some semblance of plausible deniability.
Second, they can help shape and soften the battlefield should
the Kremlin decide to engage in more overt conventional
warfare. Third, they can stir up discontent among Russians
living in the Baltic states and prompt government responses
that create a casus belli the Kremlin could use to justify lowend responses that would not necessarily implicate NATO’s
Article 5 security guarantee.
Western views of these capabilities—which many analysts
have labeled hybrid warfare since the Russian invasion of
Ukraine but have been variously described in the past as active
measures or irregular, unconventional forms of warfare—have
divided along two lines. According to one view, Russia’s use
of asymmetrical tools in its invasion of Ukraine reflects an
innovative and revolutionary military doctrine and model
of future war fighting; others argue, however, that there is
nothing particularly new or transformative about Russia’s
use of unconventional means of warfare and that it should
not serve as a one-size fits all framework for understanding
how Russia might conduct future military operations in its
neighborhood.70
Deployment of military personnel without national insignia,
as practiced by Russia with its “little green men” in Crimea,
or marshaling “volunteers” and professional mercenaries to
the front, as was done in Donbas, is a long-standing practice
in warfare, dating at least as far back as the Spanish Civil
War in the late 1930s. Further, information operations,
covert operations, fifth columns, and subversion—to name a
few methods of irregular warfare—have long been a critical
element of states’ activities intended to mislead the adversary
and demoralize its population and combatants. As one
expert has noted, the hybrid operations Russia conducted in
Ukraine have their origins in long-standing Soviet approaches
to warfare, which have included subversion, destabilization,
propaganda, and other active measures.71 In fact, claims that
Russia has innovated new generation warfare are exaggerated
and contradicted by the history of conflicts.72
Although the Russians have robust hybrid capabilities,
how—and how effectively—they would be employed in
future military operations would sometimes be scenariodependent. For example, several aspects of the operational
environment in Ukraine were conducive to Russia’s joint
use of hybrid measures and more regular military operations.
These included strong pro-Russian sentiments among the
local population in Donbas, porous borders, and the pervasive
corruption in and Russian penetration of Ukraine’s defense,
security, and intelligence establishments.73
It would not be easy to duplicate some of these favorable
conditions in the Baltic region. For one thing, ethnic
Russian populations in Estonia and Latvia—at 24 and 26
percent, respectively—are not agitating for independence
or for integration with Russia. Latvia has been reasonably
successful in integrating ethnic Russians into its society
and economy and in developing harmonious relationships
between the Latvian and Russophone communities.74 The
Russian population in Lithuania is relatively small—less
than 6 percent.75 In all three countries, Russian populations
enjoy a higher standard of living than across the border in
Russia. Latvia and Estonia have started to counter Russian
broadcasting with less slanted Russian-language broadcasting
of their own. In short, the Russian leadership’s decision to
use nonkinetic means as part of its overall military campaign
in Ukraine reflected an assessment of the overall operational
environment and factors that varied significantly from the
Baltic states.
Nonetheless, concerns that Russia will employ a new doctrine
of hybrid warfare in the Baltic region as effectively as it did in
Ukraine are real, even if sometimes exaggerated. The hybrid
CAR NEGI E E NDOWM E NT FOR I NT E R NAT I ONAL PEACE | 11
warfare concept may indeed not be a reliable foundation for
Western decisionmaking and defense planning—and overuse
of the label increases the likelihood of reaching incorrect
conclusions that could work to Russia’s advantage76—but
still, as Keir Giles has argued, Russia has improved its hybrid
warfare capabilities, especially information warfare, to
execute these attacks.77 Moreover, the Baltic states (and other
NATO members) suffer from gaps in their defenses against
these hybrid threats—including economic threats; trade and
energy embargoes; and support of opposition parties, front
groups, criminal gangs, and illicit financing networks.78
Notably, information operations are an important part of
Russia’s overall approach to projecting power and protecting
its interests.79
Thus, whether Russia’s hybrid warfare doctrine, concepts,
and tools are traditional or revolutionary is largely irrelevant.
What matters for NATO policymakers and planners is
whether Moscow has the incentives and opportunities to use
nonkinetic means of warfare to sow discord within Baltic
countries, undermine public support in the Baltic states
for their governments, create a pretext for Russian military
intervention, and arouse public sympathy and support for
Russian views and aims. As one expert—who has debunked
the theory that Russia has developed a new model of hybrid
warfare—has observed, “The Russian armed forces historically
avoid entering into conflict without careful and thorough
preparation of the battlefield . . . and making tangible efforts
to shape it according to the requirements of the mission.”80
There is little question that information and cyber operations
have become a priority for the Kremlin, driven by the
leadership’s fears that Russia is lagging behind the United
States in these technologies.81 Prudence therefore dictates
that the Baltic states, NATO, and the EU take measured
and appropriate steps to counteract Russia’s potential use of
these tools, especially because the Kremlin is likely to prefer
hybrid warfare over a direct conventional attack or to employ
both options simultaneously in any operations against the
Baltic states.
12
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Russia’s bellicose rhetoric and provocative behavior have
prompted long-overdue increases in NATO defense
spending and more robust efforts by the alliance to bolster its
deterrence and defense capabilities on its eastern flank. At its
last summit, NATO heads of state agreed to forward deploy
more capable and credible defenses to the territory of NATO’s
most vulnerable members. These are necessary and positive
contributions that, by reducing Russian confidence in a quick
victory, lower the odds of a NATO-Russia conflict. But they
are not panaceas.
The military buildup of both alliance and Russian forces
in the east reflects the assumption on both sides that it will
produce greater security. Instead, the action-reaction dynamic
risks generating less, not more, security on both sides.82
Whether NATO muscle-flexing will provoke or deter Russian
adventurism is uncertain, given the scope for misjudging the
perceptions and risk-reward calculus of the Kremlin. Based
on Russia’s recent behavior in the Baltics—specifically Putin’s
willingness to engage in tit-for-tat responses with NATO
forces over incidents of harassment and provocative military
maneuvers—Putin is unlikely to back down and change
his provocative behavior in the face of NATO’s military
moves. The alliance therefore needs to further supplement
the military measures taken to deter and defend against
Russian military adventurism with other measures to shore
up NATO’s defenses on the eastern flank while reducing the
risk of war with Russia. Steps that merit further consideration
include the following.
Change the Declaratory Policy
A more robust declaratory policy, both public and private,
could add greater uncertainty and unpredictability to Russian
calculations about the risk associated with aggression against
NATO member states. Underscoring that no weapon,
military or nonmilitary, is off the table could induce
greater caution by raising the prospective costs of Russian
aggression. The alliance, for example, should make it clear
to Moscow that a Russian attack on any Baltic state would
elicit punishing military strikes deep inside Russia against
infrastructure and energy facilities, as well as cyberattacks
to shut down Russian communications, disrupt economic
activity, and cause societal dysfunction.
Likewise, in their public messaging, the United States and
NATO at the highest levels need to dictate that any Russian
use of nuclear weapons, at whatever level, will be met with an
overwhelming and devastating NATO nuclear response—to
thereby undermine Russian confidence that any limited use
of nuclear weapons can remain limited. In short, NATO
needs to supplement its conventional deterrence strategy—
based on the threat of denying Russia its putative objectives
from an attack and increasing forward deployed forces beyond
those already planned—with a robust posture that includes
credible threats of punishment with both conventional and
nuclear weapons.
Respond to Russia’s Violation of the INF Treaty
Russia’s deployment of a new cruise missile in violation
of the INF treaty should elicit a strong alliance response
to hold Moscow accountable. Russia’s action increases the
nuclear threat to NATO and delivers another major blow to
the post–Cold War European security order and to the global
nonproliferation regime. It also raises grave doubts about the
future of the entire U.S.-Russian arms control regime. The
New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is due to
expire in 2021. Unless the INF issue is resolved, the prospects
for a renewal or negotiation of the strategic arms treaty are
remote at best.
It appears unlikely that NATO’s response, however robust,
will convince or coerce the Russians to return to compliance
with the INF treaty. For many years, Russian leaders,
including Putin,83 have been publicly raising the possibility
of withdrawing from the treaty, and the United States has
previously accused Russia of violating the treaty, although
without citing the evidence.84 The most recent statement by
a senior U.S. military officer refers to the Russian deployment
of banned missiles as a violation of the treaty’s “spirit and
intent.”85 Russia has denied the charge.86 Nonetheless, the
United States and its NATO allies need to respond vigorously
in several ways.
First, they should seek clarification from Russia on its
deployment of the new missile. They should share with
Russia, and the general public, evidence of the treaty
violation. Sharing this information should not raise the
intelligence community’s concerns about the sources and
methods used to uncover the violation—for it is now
common knowledge that such discoveries are well within
the capabilities of commercial satellites. The Russian
government, presented with this evidence publicly, should
be called on to explain the deployment and why it does not
represent a violation of the INF treaty.
Second, the United States and its allies should mount an
aggressive public relations campaign throughout Europe
and Asia to publicize evidence of the treaty violation. The
United States should engage allies in Asia—Japan and South
Korea—in a joint diplomatic effort to pressure Russia to come
clean on the violation and return to compliance with the
treaty, however unlikely the latter might be. Moreover, U.S.
officials should engage Beijing in a similar effort to underscore
the destabilizing nature of Russian actions on the security
environment in Northeast Asia. At the same time, the United
States and its NATO allies should rebut Russian allegations
that the United States has also violated INF treaty provisions.
Such allegations should be described in no uncertain terms as
Russian disinformation and fake news.
Third, NATO needs to issue a high-level statement that it
will take whatever steps are necessary to deter and defend
against Russia’s use of these weapons, indicating that all
options for a military response are on the table. The alliance
should also make clear that although the initial deployment
of its missile defenses in Europe was not aimed at Russia,
Russian actions are forcing it to reconsider its missile defense
plans for Europe to respond to the new Russian threat. This
could include increased land- and sea-based missile defense
deployments in the European theater, cyber operations, and
possible development and deployment in Europe of new
ground-based cruise and ballistic missiles. To make this
statement credible, the alliance should increase funding for
the research and development of new capabilities to counter
the Russian action.
CAR NEGI E E NDOWM E NT FOR I NT E R NAT I ON AL PEACE | 13
Fourth, in devising and implementing its response, NATO
should preserve alliance unity and protect it against Russian
attempts to undermine it. Any decision to provide a military
hedge against Russia’s new cruise missile deployments
will require alliance consensus to thwart Russia’s goal of
undermining NATO unity. To forge this consensus, NATO
should assert that it remains open to resuming talks with
Russia on how to restore compliance with the INF treaty.
Moscow is likely to reject the offer, but for political reasons,
the alliance needs to show that it has gone the extra mile to
avoid further escalation of this dispute.
Finally, the United States and its allies should not reciprocate
the Russian action with a rush to abandon the treaty. At a
minimum, such a move would hand Moscow a propaganda
victory. Although Russia is highly unlikely to return to
compliance with the treaty, every effort should be made
to preserve it.
Bolster Baltic Defenses Against Hybrid Warfare
During the July 2016 NATO summit, the alliance and
the EU issued an important joint declaration on a new
strategic partnership that pledges to substantially improve
cooperation between the two organizations to bolster alliance
defenses against hybrid threats.87 The Baltic states are the
first line of defense against Russian hybrid measures, yet
their vulnerability to Russian unconventional warfare is the
alliance’s Achilles’ heel. It remains unclear whether the Baltic
states can make a sustained resource commitment to closing
the many gaps in their defenses against Russia’s nonkinetic
tools—such as those in their banking and financial sectors,
mass communications, and domestic and foreign intelligence
and law enforcement. Further, the states may not have the
resources to increase investment in underdeveloped areas with
large concentrations of ethnic Russians. The United States and
the EU should boost funding for the Baltic countries to build
their capacity to address their most critical vulnerabilities to
Russian hybrid warfare. And NATO and the EU should avoid
getting bogged down in theological and bureaucratic disputes
over which organization should assume primary responsibility
for this mission.
14
Enhance NATO Planning for Hybrid Warfare
Russia’s hybrid warfare could pose a serious challenge to
NATO’s existing planning and decisionmaking mechanisms.
Should Moscow decide to take actions to undermine Baltic
security, it is likely to engage in disinformation and deception
to disguise both military and nonmilitary moves. NATO
could therefore be confronted with ambiguous or uncertain
indications of a possible Russian hybrid attack, creating the
potential for disagreement within NATO councils on when
and how the alliance should respond. A hasty decision on
a forceful response based on incomplete and ambiguous
information may make a crisis more difficult to manage;
by the same token, a slow decision held hostage to NATO’s
consensus-based, decisionmaking procedures could put
Baltic security at risk. NATO decisionmaking could also be
further complicated if one of the Baltic states, in the event
of a provocation by little green men or some other activities
in the gray zone, decides to trigger Article 5 by using lethal
force to deal with the situation.
To deal with these potential dilemmas, the alliance needs
to reach an internal consensus on a doctrine that reflects
agreement on the following questions: What would be
the trigger for a NATO nonkinetic response to Russia’s
use of hybrid warfare against the Baltic states? Would the
alliance need to respond collectively and militarily to more
aggressive Russian information operations? What would be
the costs and consequences if NATO failed to act under these
circumstances? What if the source of the attack is unclear but
is generally believed to be Russia?
New planning mechanisms need to be established within
the alliance to determine military, operational, and capability
requirements to deal with a range of Russian hybrid warfare
contingencies. However, many of these needs fall outside
NATO’s core competencies and will therefore require much
closer NATO-EU cooperation, as well as stepped up efforts by
the Baltic states. The alliance might also have to reevaluate its
crisis management and decisionmaking procedures to ensure
that they are structured for quick and effective responses to
Russian activities that are truly hybrid in nature—in other
words, those that combine low-intensity and high-intensity
military moves.
Adopt Less Escalatory Deterrent Measures
As a recent RAND report argues, there are a number of
measures to improve deterrence and defense on the eastern
flank that Moscow might perceive as less threatening than
additional forward deployments of ground forces and combat
aircraft from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and
the United States.88 These measures include (1) helping the
Baltic states to acquire air defense weapons (for example,
man-portable air defense systems) and attack and transport
helicopters and (2) bolstering efforts to enhance intra-Baltic
and Baltic­-Nordic defense coordination and improvements
in training; interoperability; command and control;
logistics; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance;
and infrastructure.89 NATO should also establish a robust
exercise program to regularly test its system, or its different
components, for mobilizing and deploying forces to reinforce
Baltic security in response to Russian military attacks.
In addition, the alliance could take two other relatively
less threatening actions to bolster deterrence. First, prepositioning more heavy equipment in Poland would force
Russia to widen the scope of the initial attack and thus
increase the probability of triggering a NATO response.
Second, integrating NATO special forces within existing
Baltic force structures would make the threat of effective
Baltic insurgency operations far more credible.90
Keep the Door Open to Dialogue With Russia
The Warsaw Summit communiqué made it clear that the
alliance hopes to pursue a dual-track approach of deterrence
and dialogue with Russia. NATO and Russia are trapped in
a classic security dilemma where defensive moves taken by
one side are seen as offensive and threatening by the other
side. It will be especially important, therefore, that both sides
understand and discuss the security dilemma and possible
measures to make their military postures less threatening.91
There will be pressure within NATO and the U.S.
government to have these discussions in the NATO-Russia
Council. Despite the lack of results from the council’s first
meeting immediately following the Warsaw Summit, these
sessions should continue even if not productive. At the same
time, the Russians may be unwilling to engage in a serious
and constructive give-or-take effort, and there is little to be
gained from pressuring them.
Stability and predictability are more likely to be assured if
the United States and Russia resume a structured, sustained
dialogue about deterrence, security, and strategic stability
more broadly. The priority should be discussing measures
NATO and Russia could take to reduce the risk of conflict
arising from an incident or miscommunication—although
Moscow will certainly push for as broad an agenda as
possible.92 Washington will need to consult with its allies
both before and after this dialogue to reassure them that it
is not engaged in secret dealings with Moscow. It may also be
useful to create a new multilateral regional format for dialogue
with Russia that would include the Baltic states, Poland, other
key NATO allies, and possibly Sweden and Finland.
Agree on More Confidence-Building Measures
Increased military-to-military communication, information
exchange, and transparency measures could help reduce the
risk of an unintended NATO-Russian conflict as a result
of an accident, misunderstanding, or miscommunication.93
A number of useful recommendations merit further
consideration, such as conducting mutual inspections under
the Vienna Document 2011, expanding information that can
be collected by aerial observation flights under the Open Skies
Treaty, and increasing data sharing on force movements.94
Russia should also be pressed both privately and publicly to
provide greater transparency on some of its military activities,
even if not covered by the Vienna Document. NATO should
respond in a proportionate way if Russia refuses to agree to
greater transparency.
The United States and its allies nonetheless need to engage
Russia with caution if these discussions get off the ground.
There are, in fact, plenty of established procedures and
mechanisms that, if observed by Moscow, could improve the
status quo. Moreover, it is important to remember that Russia
is deliberately engaging in provocative and irresponsible
military maneuvers for a purpose—either to force the West
to back off from its own peacetime military operations close
to Russia’s borders, which the Kremlin would portray as a
great victory in staring down NATO, or to force the West to
engage with the Russians as part of Moscow’s quest to be seen
as a great power equal to the United States. Any resumption
of dialogue in military-to-military channels should focus
CAR NEGI E E NDOWM E NT FOR I NT E R NAT I ONAL PEACE | 15
on securing a commitment from Russia to carry out its
obligations under existing agreements with the United States.
4.
5.
CONCLUSION
The new standoff between NATO and Russia may become
the new normal, but the relationship is unlikely to be stable
and is rife with possibilities for miscalculation. The more
NATO and Russia escalate and counterescalate with military
responses that the other sees as hostile, the greater the chance
of a conflict due to an accident, miscalculation, or military
incident that spins out of control. The West and Russia
may or may not be locked into a new Cold War in Europe,
but their adversarial relationship could lead toward greater
confrontation and possible conflict unless they can agree on
more effective communication and risk-reduction measures
and on rules of the road for peacetime military operations.
Both sides need to borrow a page or two from the U.S.Russian Cold War playbook to prevent their cool war in
Europe from becoming hot.
The author would like to thank Eugene Rumer for his extremely
helpful comments on successive drafts of this paper and Bogdan
Belei for his invaluable research assistance.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
NOTES
1.
2.
3.
16
For an overview of provocative Russian aircraft maneuvers, see Thomas
Frear, Łukasz Kulesa, and Ian Kearns, “Dangerous Brinkmanship:
Close Military Encounters Between Russia and the West in 2014,”
European Leadership Network, November 10, 2014, http://www.
europeanleadershipnetwork.org/medialibrary/2014/11/09/6375e3da/
Dangerous%20Brinkmanship.pdf.
Andrew Monaghan, “Facing an Arc of Crisis,” Russia in Global Affairs,
February 13, 2016, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/Facingan-Arc-of-Crisis-17980; and Andrew Monaghan, “Russian State
Mobilization: Moving the Country on to a War Footing,” Chatham
House, May 2016, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/
russian-state-mobilization-moving-country-war-footing.
For references of Russian official statements on U.S. interventions in
Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, see Modest Kolerov, Bez SSSR [Without
the USSR] (Moscow: Regnum, 2008); Jill Dougherty, “Putin Warns on
Iraq War,” CNN, March 28, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/
europe/03/28/sprj.irq.putin/; Ellen Barry, “Putin Criticizes West for
Libya Incursion,” New York Times, April 26, 2011, http://www.nytimes.
com/2011/04/27/world/europe/27putin.html; and Carol J. Williams,
“Russia Says U.S. Support for Syrian Rebels Portends Wider Mideast
Chaos,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2015, http://www.latimes.com/
world/europe/la-fg-russia-us-syria-rebels-20150803-story.html.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Dmitri Trenin, “Managing Risks in the Russia–United States
Conflict,” Carnegie Moscow Center, May 30, 2016, http://carnegie.ru/
commentary/?fa=63685.
Stephen Kotkin, “Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics,” Foreign Affairs, May/
June 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2016-04-18/
russias-perpetual-geopolitics.
Michael Birnbaum, “Near Russia’s Border with the Baltics, Soldiers
on Both Sides Are Practicing for War,” Washington Post, July 3,
2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/near-russiasborder-with-the-baltics-soldiers-on-both-sides-are-practicing-forwar/2016/07/01/5a1ea29c-2775-11e6-98ad-1e25d68f2760_story.
html?utm_term=.3422bdc67484.
Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Romney’s Adversarial View of Russia Stirs Debate,”
New York Times, May 11, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/us/
politics/romneys-view-of-russia-sparks-debate.html.
Dan Lamothe, “Russia Is the Greatest Threat to the U.S., Says Joint Chiefs
Chairman Nominee Gen. Joseph Dunford,” Washington Post, July 9, 2015,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/07/09/
russia-is-greatest-threat-to-the-u-s-says-joint-chiefs-chairman-nomineegen-joseph-dunford/?utm_term=.476fa4860b9d.
Henry Foy, “Eastern Members Pressure Nato for Permanent
Bases,” Financial Times, August 17, 2015, https://www.ft.com/
content/8595ae2a-44ea-11e5-b3b2-1672f710807b.
Liis Kangsepp and Juhana Rossi, “Estonia Says Officer
Abducted Near Russian Border,” Wall Street Journal,
September 5, 2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/
estonian-officer-abducted-near-border-with-russia-1409928475.
NATO officials have estimated that allied aircraft scrambled around 400
times to meet Russian aircraft over the airspace of NATO countries in
2014 and 2015. In 2016, this number increased to 800 times. See Ivan
Watson and Sebastian Shukla, “Russian Fighter Jets ‘Buzz’ U.S. Warship
in Black Sea, Photos Show,” CNN, February 16, 2017, http://www.cnn.
com/2017/02/16/us/russia-us-ship-fly-by/.
Zachary Keck, “Russia’s Nuclear Forces Begin Their
Largest Drill Ever,” National Interest, February 12,
2015, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/
russia%E2%80%99s-nuclear-forces-begin-their-largest-drill-ever-12245.
“Kaliningrad: New Russian Missile Deployment Angers Nato,” BBC,
November 22, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38070201.
Robert Windrem, “Timeline: Ten Years of Russian Cyber Attacks on Other
Nations,” NBC, December 18, 2016, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/
us-news/timeline-ten-years-russian-cyber-attacks-other-nations-n697111.
“Joint Press Conference with Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras,”
Official Internet Resources of the President of Russia, May 27, 2016,
http://en.special.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52024.
Michael Gordon, “Russia Has Deployed Missile Barred by Treaty, U.S.
General Tells Congress,” New York Times, March 8, 2017, https://www.
nytimes.com/2017/03/08/us/politics/russia-inf-missile-treaty.html?_r=0.
Gerard O’Dwyer, “Russia Issues Fresh Threats Against Unaligned
Nordic States,” Defense News, May 5, 2016, http://www.defensenews.
com/story/defense/international/2016/05/05/russia-issues-freshthreats-against-unaligned-nordic-states/83959852/; and Damien
Sharkov, “Russia Practiced Nuclear Strike on Sweden: NATO
Report,” Newsweek, February 4, 2016, http://www.newsweek.com/
russia-practiced-nuclear-strike-sweden-nato-report-422914.
18. Office of the Press Secretary, “Fact Sheet: The FY2017 European
Reassurance Initiative Budget Request,” White House, February 2, 2016,
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/02/
fact-sheet-fy2017-european-reassurance-initiative-budget-request.
19. “Warsaw Summit Communiqué,” press release, North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, July 9, 2016, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_
texts_133169.htm.
20. Sara Miller Llana and Fred Weir, “Next Up After NATO’s Baltic/Poland
Build-Up: Lowering Tension With Russia,” Christian Science Monitor, July
11, 2016, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2016/0711/Nextup-after-NATO-s-Baltic-Poland-build-up-lowering-tension-with-Russia.
21. Dmitri Trenin, ‘The Revival of the Russian Military,” Foreign Affairs, May/
June 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2016-04-18/
revival-russian-military.
22. Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Calls New U.S. Missile Defense System a
‘Direct Threat,’” New York Times, May 12, 2016, https://www.nytimes.
com/2016/05/13/world/europe/russia-nato-us-romania-missiledefense.html; Eugene Rumer, “Russian and the Security of Europe,”
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2016, 19, http://
carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_276_Rumer_Russia_Final.pdf; and
“Russian Missiles to Overcome Any U.S. Missile Defense,” Interfax,
February 20, 2017, http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=736383.
23. See, for example, Sergey Markov, “Gibridnaya voina” protiv Rossiy”
[Hybrid warfare against Russia], LitRes, Moscow, September 2015.
24. “‘Pora postavit’ deystvenniy zaslon informatsionnoi voine’” [‘Time to
set up an effective screen in the information war’], Kommersant, April
18, 2016; and “Komanduyushchiy voiskami ZVO: protiv Rosii nachata
gibridnaya voina” [Commander of the Western Military District: A hybrid
war has been started against Russia], Vesti.ru, April 24, 2015.
25. Oleg Odnokolenko, “Gibridnaya voina: problemy i perspektivy
postkonfliktnogo uregulirovaniya (chast’ II)” [Hybrid war: problems and
prospects for post-conflict regulation (part II)], Nezavisimaya Gazeta,
March 13, 2015.
26. Oleg Odnokolenko, “Rossiya i NATO: besperspektivniy dialog” [Russia
and NATO: a dialogue with no prospects], Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 22,
2016.
27. “Voenniy ekspert Igor’ Korotchenko: ‘Rossiya dolzhna byt’ gotova k
konfliktam novogo tipa’” [Military expert Igor’ Korotchenko: ‘Russia
needs to be ready for new types of conflicts’], File-RF, January 28, 2016.
28. Agence France-Presse, “Vladimir Putin Warns Russians to Avoid Google:
The Internet is a CIA ‘Special Project,’” Raw Story, April 24, 2014, http://
www.rawstory.com/2014/04/vladimir-putin-warns-russians-to-avoidgoogle-the-internet-is-a-cia-special-project/; and Rumer, “Russia and the
Security of Europe.”
29. For a landmark study on this subject, see Robert Jervis, Perception and
Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1976).
30. Keir Giles, “Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West,” Chatham
House, March 2016, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/
russias-new-tools-confronting-west.
31. Paul Sonne, “U.S. Is Trying to Dismember Russia, Says Putin Adviser,”
Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2015, https://www.wsj.com/
articles/u-s-is-trying-to-dismember-russia-says-putin-adviser-1423667319.
32. Russia’s western flank includes twenty-two maneuver battalions comprised
of four tank battalions, five mechanized infantry battalions, five motorized
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
infantry battalions, and eight airborne battalions in the Western Military
District. There are an additional three naval infantry battalions stationed
in Kaliningrad.
David A. Shlapak and Michael Johnson, Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s
Eastern Flank (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016), 4, http://
www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1253.html.
John-Thor Dahlburg and Monika Scislowska, “NATO Chief: 4 Battalions
Going to Baltic States, Poland,” Associated Press, June 13, 2016,
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8c3a6a689d19465895880ec9ca3f69f4/
nato-chief-alliance-will-agree-week-deploy-four-battalions.
In the Western Military District, Russia has three artillery battalions
equipped with tube artillery and seven battalions equipped with multiple
rocket launchers (two heavy rocket launchers and five medium rocket
launchers).
In the Western Military District, Russia has two SSM battalions equipped
with Iskander short-range ballistic missiles and two equipped with Tochka
very short-range ballistic missiles. There is one additional SSM battalion
equipped with Tochka missiles stationed in Kaliningrad.
On the eastern flank, Russia’s twenty-seven combat air squadrons are
comprised of nine squadrons of Su-27 Flankers, two squadrons of Su-34
Fullbacks, three squadrons of MiG-29 Fulcrums, four squadrons of MiG31 Foxhounds, five squadrons of Su-24 Fencers, and four squadrons of
Tu-22M3 Backfires. Russia’s six attack helicopter battalions on the eastern
flank are comprised of Mi-24 Hind gunships.
Shlapak and Johnson, Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank, 5.
See Stephan Fruhling and Guillaume Lasconjarias, “NATO, A2/AD and
the Kaliningrad Challenge,” Survival 58, no. 2 (April–May 2016): http://
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2016.1161906.
David A. Shlapak and Michael W. Johnson, “Outnumbered,
Outranged, and Outgunned: How Russia Defeats NATO,” War
on the Rocks, April 21, 2016, https://warontherocks.com/2016/04/
outnumbered-outranged-and-outgunned-how-russia-defeats-nato/.
Paul McLeary, “Meet the New Fulda Gap,” Foreign Policy, September
29, 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/29/fulda-gap-nato-russiaputin-us-army/; and Julian E. Barnes, “Closing the Gap: NATO Moves to
Protect Weak Link in Defenses Against Russia,” Wall Street Journal, June
17, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/closing-the-gap-nato-moves-toprotect-weak-link-in-defenses-against-russia-1466205268.
See, for example, Michael Kofman, “Fixing NATO Deterrence in the East
or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love NATO’s Crushing Defeat
by Russia,” War on the Rocks, May 12, 2016, https://warontherocks.
com/2016/05/fixing-nato-deterrence-in-the-east-or-how-i-learned-to-stopworrying-and-love-natos-crushing-defeat-by-russia/.
See, for example, David A. Shlapak, “Russia is Outmanned and
Outgunned,” U.S. News and World Report, April 9, 2014, http://www.
rand.org/blog/2014/04/russia-is-outmanned-and-outgunned.html; and
Shlapak and Johnson, “Outnumbered, Outrange, and Outgunned.”
David Filipov, “These Maps Show How Russia Has Europe Spooked,”
Washington Post, November 23, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/
news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/23/these-maps-show-how-russia-haseurope-spooked/?utm_term=.113214d82d62.
For an in-depth assessment of recent Russian exercises, see Johan Norberg,
“Training to Fight: Russia’s Major Military Exercises 2011–2014,” Swedish
Defense Research Agency, December 11, 2015, https://www.foi.se/
reportsummary?reportNo=FOI-R--4128--SE.
CAR NEGI E E NDOWM E NT FOR I NT E R NAT I ON AL PEACE | 17
46. Military units have been increasingly deployed to the Western Military
District (close to the borders of Belarus and Ukraine) since 2013, driven
in part by the conflict in Ukraine. See Michael Kofman, “Russia’s New
Divisions in the West,” Russian Military Analysis (blog), May 7, 2016,
https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/05/07/russias-newdivisions-in-the-west/. An additional motorized rifle division will be
deployed in the Smolensk region by mid-2017; see “New Division to be
Deployed Near Russia’s Smolensk by mid-2017 — Source,” TASS, July 5,
2016, http://tass.com/defense/886421.
47. Igor Sutyagin, “Russia Confronts NATO: ConfidenceDestruction Measures,” Royal United Services Institute,
July 6, 2016, https://rusi.org/publication/briefing-papers/
russia-confronts-nato-confidence-destruction-measures.
48. See Michael Birnbaum, “The Baltics’ Tangled Geography That Has Both
Sides Feeling Surrounded,” Washington Post, July 5, 2016, https://www.
washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-baltics-tangled-geography-thathas-both-sides-feeling-surrounded/2016/07/04/21f9e558-2cdd-11e6b9d5-3c3063f8332c_story.html?utm_term=.9a196e531c70.
49. Dmitry Gorenburg, “Baltic Fleet Commanders Fired,” Russian
Military Reform (blog), June 29, 2016, https://russiamil.wordpress.
com/2016/06/29/baltic-fleet-commanders-fired/.
50. Ibid.
51. Roger McDermott, “Image and Reality in Russia’s Armed Forces,” Eurasia
Daily Monitor 13, no. 171 (October 25, 2016): https://jamestown.org/
program/image-reality-russias-armed-forces/.
52. See Roger McDermott, “Shoigu Builds Mythical Russian Army,” Eurasia
Daily Monitor 13, no. 101 (May 24, 2016): https://jamestown.org/
program/shoigu-builds-mythical-russian-army/; and “Defense Minister
Shoigu Reports on Russian Military Modernization,” Eurasia Daily
Monitor 13, no. 101 (July 20, 2016): https://jamestown.org/program/
defense-minister-shoigu-reports-on-russian-military-modernization/.
53. Julian Cooper, “The Military Face of a ‘Militant Russia,’” Russia in
Global Affairs, February 13, 2016, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/
The-Military-Face-of-Militant-Russia--17979.
54. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2016
(London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, February 2016).
55. “Assessing the Cold War’s New Front Line,” Wikistrat, November 25,
2016, http://www.wikistrat.com/assessing-the-cold-wars-new-front-line/.
56. Maria Tsvetkova, “Special Report: Russian Soldiers Quit Over
Ukraine,” Reuters, May 10, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/
us-ukraine-crisis-soldiers-specialreport-idUSKBN0NV06Q20150510.
57. See Phillip Karber and Joshua Thibeault, “Russia’s New Generation
Warfare,” Potomac Foundation, May 13, 2016, http://www.
thepotomacfoundation.org/russias-new-generation-warfare-2/.
58. See Report of the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) “Russia’s State
Armament Program to 2020,” 2013.
59. Ibid.
60. Alexander Golts and Michael Kofman, “Russia’s Military: Assessment,
Strategy, and Threat,” Center on Global Interests, June 2016, http://
globalinterests.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Russias-Military-Centeron-Global-Interests-2016.pdf.
61. Ibid.
62. Alexei Lossan, “Russia Slashes Military Spending
as Revenues Shrink,” Russia Beyond the Headlines,
November 1, 2016, http://rbth.com/defence/2016/11/01/
russia-slashes-military-spending-as-revenues-shrink_644019.
18
63. Martin Russell, “Russia’s Armed Forces: Reforms and Challenges,”
European Parliamentary Research Service, April 2015, http://
www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2015/554213/
EPRS_IDA(2015)554213_EN.pdf.
64. Andrew S. Bowen, “Russia’s Deceptively Weak Military,” National
Interest, June 7, 2015, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/
russias-deceptively-weak-military-13059.
65. See Kathleen Hicks et al., “Undersea Warfare in Northern Europe: Key
Findings and Recommendations,” Center for Strategic and International
Studies, July 2016, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/
publication/160713_Hicks_UnderseaWarfare_AbbreviatedVersion_
Web_0.pdf.
66. Norberg, “Training to Fight.”
67. McDermott, “Image and Reality.”
68. See Andrew E. Kramer, “Spooked by Russia, Tiny Estonia Trains a Nation
of Insurgents,” New York Times, October 31, 2016, https://www.nytimes.
com/2016/11/01/world/europe/spooked-by-russia-tiny-estonia-trainsa-nation-of-insurgents.html; and Michael Birnbaum, “Fearing Closer
Trump Ties With Putin, Latvia Prepares for the Worst,” Washington
Post, November 18, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/
europe/fearing-closer-trump-ties-with-putin-latvia-prepares-for-theworst/2016/11/18/f22b3376-ab54-11e6-8f19-21a1c65d2043_story.
html?utm_term=.ace622e5309a.
69. Paul Goble, “Baltic Geography Presents Moscow with
Three Distinct Challenges,” Eurasia Daily Monitor 13,
no. 125 (July 12, 2016): https://jamestown.org/program/
baltic-geography-presents-moscow-with-three-distinct-challenges/.
70. Bettina Renz and Hanna Smith, “Russia and Hybrid Warfare—Going
Beyond the Label,” Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, January
2016, http://www.stratcomcoe.org/bettina-renz-and-hanna-smith-russiaand-hybrid-warfare-going-beyond-label.
71. Giles, “Russia’s ‘New’ Tools.”
72. Karber and Thibeault, “Russia’s New Generation Warfare.”
73. See Roger N. McDermott, “Does Russia Have a Gerasimov Doctrine?,”
Parameters 46, no. 1 (Spring 2016): http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.
mil/pubs/parameters/issues/Spring_2016/12_McDermott.pdf.
74. Interviews with Latvian government officials by members of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace–Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, October
2016.
75. “The World Factbook: Lithuania,” Central Intelligence Agency, accessed
March 1, 2017, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/
the-world-factbook/geos/lh.html/.
76. Renz and Smith, “Russia and Hybrid Warfare-Going Beyond the Label.”
77. Giles, “Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West.”
78. See Michael Birnbaum, “In Tense Confrontation With Russia, a Battle
Over History Suggests Cold War Never Ended,” Washington Post, July
5, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-tenseconfrontation-with-russia-a-battle-over-history-suggests-cold-war-neverended/2016/06/30/0d2de07a-2cc9-11e6-a949-82110a957074_story.
html?utm_term=.b4b9394a03d4.
79. See Max Fisher, “In D.N.C. Hack, Echoes of Russia’s New Approach
to Power,” New York Times, July 25, 2016, https://www.nytimes.
com/2016/07/26/world/europe/russia-dnc-putin-strategy.html; and
Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, “Cross-Domain Coercion: The Current Russian
Art of Strategy,” Institut Français des Relations Internationales, November
2015, http://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/pp54adamsky.pdf.
80. McDermott, “Does Russia Have a Gerasimov Doctrine?”
81. Sergey Sukhankin, “Russia Playing Catch-Up in Cyber Security,” Eurasia
Daily Monitor 13, no. 172 (October 26, 2016): https://jamestown.org/
program/russia-playing-catch-cyber-security/.
82. See Richard Sokolsky, “Not Quiet on NATO’s Eastern Front,” Foreign
Affairs, June 29, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/
russian-federation/2016-06-29/not-quiet-natos-eastern-front.
83. Luke Harding, “Putin Threatens Withdrawal From Cold War Nuclear
Treaty,” Guardian, October 12, 2007, https://www.theguardian.com/
world/2007/oct/12/russia.usa1.
84. Paul Sonne, Julian E. Barnes, and Gordon Lubold,
“U.S. Accuses Russia of Violating Missile Treaty,” Wall
Street Journal, October 19, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/
articles/u-s-accuses-russia-of-violating-missile-treaty-1476912606.
85. Michael R. Gordon, “Russia Has Deployed Missile Barred by Treaty, U.S.
General Tells Congress,” New York Times, March 8, 2017, https://www.
nytimes.com/2017/03/08/us/politics/russia-inf-missile-treaty.html?_r=0.
86. Frederik Pleitgen, Alla Eshchenko, and Laura Smith-Spark, “Russia Denies
Deploying Cruise Missile in Treaty Breach,” CNN, March 9, 2017, http://
www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/europe/russia-us-cruise-missile-treaty/.
87. See, “Joint Declaration by the President of the European Council, the
President of the European Commission, and the Secretary General of the
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” press release, NATO, July 8, 2016,
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-16-2459_en.htm.
Christopher S. Chivvis et al., NATO’s Northeastern Flank—Emerging
Opportunities for Engagement (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
July 2016), http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1467z1.html.
Interviews with Latvian officials, October 2016.
“Assessing the Cold War’s New Front Line,” Wikistrat.
See Robert Jervis’ classic work, “Cooperation Under the Security
Dilemma, World Politics 30, no. 2 (January 1978): https://www.jstor.org/
stable/2009958?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.
See Igor Ivanov, “U.S.-Russia Relations and the U.S. Presidential Election,”
Russian International Affairs Council, July 2016, http://russiancouncil.ru/
en/inner/?id_4=7922.
Task Force on Cooperation in Greater Europe, “Crisis Management
in Europe in the Context of Events in Ukraine,” European Leadership
Network, July 2014, http://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/medi
alibrary/2014/08/07/8172a96e/Task%20Force%20Position%20Paper_
July%202014_English.pdf; and “Back from the Brink: Toward Restraint
and Dialogue between Russia and the West,” Deep Cuts Commission,
June 2016, http://www.deepcuts.org/images/PDF/Third_Report_of_the_
Deep_Cuts_Commission_English.pdf.
Ibid.
TASK FORCE ON U.S. POLICY TOWARD RUSSIA, UKRAINE, AND EURASIA
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for a durable U.S. policy framework. The task force is a joint effort with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and is supported, in part, by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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